A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery 2)

Without thinking that he was changing the scene, he made a leap forward and caught poor Janet before she hit the floor. When the body fell back against the chair, what he saw so stunned him that he dropped his phone.

“Oh. My. God,” Dora said.

They both stood there, paralyzed.

Janet Beeson had a gunshot in her head and a large knife sticking out of her chest. Green vomit was on her chin and down the front of her shirt. Poison, maybe?

Sheriff Flynn recovered first. “Somebody really, really wanted her dead,” he managed to say. It took a while to find his phone, but he hesitated in calling the main office. What would it matter if he took a few minutes to collect himself?

He couldn’t take his eyes off the body. Janet Beeson, of all people! He couldn’t remember anything significant about her. If her name was ever mentioned, it was always in good terms.

As his senses came back to him, it was as though he could see the future. He was just the local sheriff, so the big shots at Broward would take over this case. The fact that he’d lived in Lachlan all his life would mean nothing to them. They’d push him out completely. That he’d been instrumental in helping solve the last murder would mean nothing to them. He doubted if they’d even let him have a set of the photos they’d take. How could he investigate—on his own—if he couldn’t study the crime scene? He needed those photos!

Before he could think about what he was doing, he called Sara Medlar’s private number. She answered on the first ring. “I need you to take pictures of a dead body. Now. 2012 San Remo. It’s—” Sara had already hung up.

Sheriff Flynn smiled. It was lunchtime so Jack might be home. He’d want to get here fast, so Sara just might arrive with young Jack on his dad’s big Harley. About six minutes later, he heard the roar of the bike and his smile widened. At least he’d get photos! And if he manipulated the Medlar trio right, he might get more.

Yes, it would be better to call the downtown office after Sara had done her job. He went outside to meet them.

Two

KATE MEDLAR WAS showing a cute three-bedroom house that had just come on the market.

“I really hate the furniture,” the man said.

“So do I,” his wife said. “We’re more modern than this.”

“I think my grandmother has a cabinet just like that.” His tone held a sneer of derision.

Kate didn’t grit her teeth. “Everything will be moved out as soon as the house sells.” She tried to sound as though she’d never before heard what they were saying. “Let me show you the rest of the home.”

She listened as they complained about every feature in the kitchen. They liked dark cabinets, not white. Hated the fridge and the stove. He despised...

Kate stepped away to let them enjoy their belief in their superior taste. She looked forward to telling them that the kitchen cabinets were Swedish and had cost about fifty grand. What she really wanted to say was that the cabinet in the living room was genuine Hepplewhite. If his grandmother owned one, it should be heavily insured.

But selling required endless patience—and keeping your mouth shut.

Kate looked outside. It was autumn and on their last call, her mother had asked if she missed the color change of the leaves in the Chicago suburb where she’d grown up. Kate had said she did, but that wasn’t completely true. A couple of friends she kept in touch with had smirkingly asked how she bore the heat of a South Florida summer. She’d been more honest with them. “In a bikini in my aunt’s private swimming pool.” That had shut them up so well that their emails had become less frequent.

Just six months ago, Kate had arrived in Lachlan, one of many little towns attached to enormous Fort Lauderdale. Stores, restaurants, services, gyms, and entertainment were all there and easy to reach via wide, clean streets. A very enjoyable place to live.

She hadn’t arrived feeling that way. She’d been scared half to death at the newness of what she was undertaking. She was going to be staying with her late father’s older sister, a woman she knew nothing about. Sara Medlar was a famous writer, now retired—sort of. She still spent whole days with pen and paper writing no one knew what.

Jack said that a writer retiring was like a rehabbed drug addict taking a job in a cocaine factory. The goings-on in the world offered too much temptation to be able to resist recording them.

Jack was Aunt Sara’s friend. Or as she put it, “the grandson I should have had.” At the first of the year he’d been in a car crash that had killed his younger half brother. When Kate met him, Jack was grieving and angry, and his leg was in a cumbersome cast.

Aunt Sara said that Kate’s refusal to feel sorry for Jack had brought him out of his depression. Whatever it was, the three of them had found that living together in Aunt Sara’s big, beautiful house suited them. Sara had a bedroom suite on one side, Kate had a suite of rooms on the other side, and Jack was in the middle. He had a spacious bedroom with a sitting area by the garage so he could come and go whenever he wanted without anyone knowing.

They shared cooking, straightening the house, and errands. What they didn’t share was the remote control to the big TV in the family room. Any show too “girly” as Jack called it was to be viewed in private. Sara and Kate made a point of never obeying his rule.

Back in the spring, they’d been thrown into solving an old mystery that had nearly killed them. But they’d done it together and it had bonded them. The Lachlan sheriff referred to them as though they were just one person. The Three, he called them. Au

nt Sara had written Together in calligraphy, framed it, and hung it over the TV. If she’d meant to make Jack remember that they were a team and therefore willingly share the remote, she had failed.

After the mystery was solved, Sara and Jack went back to their normal lives and Kate began a new one. Jack bought run-down houses in Lachlan and, with his crew, remodeled them. Kate worked for Kirkwood Realty as an agent. She’d already sold two houses this year and had three strong possibilities lined up. Sara filled her days with... Well, no one was sure what she did, but she was always busy. She loved photography and often showed them staggeringly beautiful pictures she’d taken that day.

The prospective buyers were still complaining about the house when Kate’s phone buzzed. It was a rare thing indeed: a text from Jack.